The corporate name game

Remember the Boston Garden? Candlestick Park? The Meadowlands? Names like that are a thing of the past; now it’s Fleet Center and USAirways Arena and 3Com Park and here in Houston, Minute Maid Park (formerly Enron Field!) and the Toyota Center (with a Tundra parking garage - I was thinking there should be a Prius garage for compact cars). 

I understand that these kinds of naming deals provide money to build and maintain these facilities; I also understand that companies see them as branding opportunities. I’m still not sold on them. 

First, I doubt that companies actually get value that matches the money they put into them; am I more likely to buy a Toyota because I see the Toyota Center when I go downtown? Would I have forgotten who Toyota was if not for that sort of thing? 

And as someone who likes names that reflect the culture and history of places, I think I’d have a better impression of the corporate sponsors if, say, something in Houston was named White Oak Stadium or Sam Houston Field or Allen Center - well, we do have an Allen Center, named after the guys whose real estate deal led to the founding of the town - with signage telling me that money from Toyota (or ExxonMobil or Conoco or whomever) helped make it happen. (In fact, when you walk into our excellent Museum of Fine Arts, there’s a wall with a list of corporate sponsors - and it’s big. And when I first saw it, I appreciated that Houston’s business community is so incredibly supportive of local cultural institutions - these companies have nothing to apologize for in Houston, they are very good citizens in this regard.) 

A big new park just opened up downtown, with the unfortunate name Discovery Green. (It’s not unfortunate because it’s a corporate name, it’s just incredibly awkward.) I haven’t been yet; it sounds great, green space in the middle of downtown, with dog runs, food, a weekly farmers’ market, and all kinds of good stuff. And lots of corporate sponsorship opportunities, including this rather unfortunate one:

 

 

 

I’m not knocking Waste Management, Inc. here. I think it’s great that they’ve put money into the new park. I’m also not knocking their business; what they do is important. They deserve credit.

But… Waste Management, Inc. Gardens? It doesn’t exactly sound like a bucolic spot for downtown workers to take their brown bag lunches and enjoy some humid Houston weather.

I’m waiting for the day that a company offers this kind of sponsorship and says, “Call it something relevant to the location, and put some signs with our name out.” That’s a company whose branding exercise will make a powerful positive impression on me.
 

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